EPTMove away IMO
In other news, this week the American news satire company "the Onion" has a new regime - so to speak - at the top.
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
Starcraft II: Censorship, Communism, China - Page 6
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Meta
United States6225 Posts
Move away IMO In other news, this week the American news satire company "the Onion" has a new regime - so to speak - at the top. http://www.theonion.com/content/index | ||
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SonuvBob
Aiur21550 Posts
http://digg.com/pc_games/Starcraft_2_BANNED_from_ChinaJoy_2009_Chinas_premiere_event | ||
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
On July 24 2009 02:57 Vision wrote: What the hell is the point of living if you don't do what you like? I hope your being sarcastic, otherwise you are the biggest idiot i've seen in a while. wow. anyone that doesn't agree that the most prestigious point of living is "doing what you like" is an idiot? .. wow. | ||
Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
On July 24 2009 12:29 sArite_nite wrote: I hurt. For all the gamers in that country. I hurt. Ironic then that China has what is probably the most active Starcraft scene outside of Korea, and the most active WCIII scene, in addition to very active scenes in other games such as CS. What people who aren't living/haven't lived in China usually don't understand is that these days, what the government does is almost completely separate from the concerns of the everyday Chinese. The government knows better than to actually interfere with the everyday life of people in China - THAT would get people very pissed off. The general view of the Chinese people is that the government can say whatever they want, and as long as it's not affecting everyday life, it's all good. You can see it as a very odd state with almost two separate entities each doing their own thing in China - the government and the people, and as long as one doesn't cross into the territory of the other, everything stays "harmonious." At least, that's the vibe I'm getting in China. @ Emlary: RMB 80000 per month as middle class? Are you sure you didn't stick an extra 0 on that? Even then, 8000 RMB per month is a tad on the high side. I'd say 4000-5000 would be the average for middle class. Maybe 6000-8000 in bigger cities like Beijing. | ||
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420zerg
Australia47 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
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baubo
China3370 Posts
What's even worse is that he talks about reading the wiki, when the wiki and any other English source clearly states that middle class has nothing to do with having a car or owning your own house. It has everything to do with being a skilled laborer who's not doing manual labor, but also not among the elite of society. It shows how disconnected he is with everyday society and normal working Chinese folks. Even though I personally used to make quite a lot compared to an average Chinese person(before I went back to school), I I at least know many hard-working true middle-class Chinese on a personal level. From big cities like Beijing and Shanghai down to small towns. It kind of helped that I traveled quite a bit. Anyway, it has really been an eye-popping experience for me, as it really cleared a lot of misconceptions about the country and the people that I used to have while living in the US. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
On July 24 2009 06:47 citi.zen wrote: Of course not, they are comfortable playing hard ball these days. I am repeating myself, but the Rio Tinto story is too good: + Show Spoiler + Rio Tinto is a global mining conglomerate. China needs lots of iron ore for its industry, so it has to deal with them. * Early 2009, China tries to buy a large stake in Rio Tinto ($20bn investment through Aluminium Corp.). Negotiations fall through however, after politicians in Australia/UK decide they don't want a Chinese company controlling Rio Tinto. China is understandably pissed off: aren't our money just as good as someone elses'? What gives? * June/July 2009, China wants to at least renegotiate ore prices downwards, entering talks with Rio Tinto. Negotiations fail to get to the price reduction China wanted. * July 2009, Chinese govt. arrests Riot Tinto execs for "espionage". Arresting employees when negotiations fail >>> copyright infringements I think. The arrest of Hu was China's way of asserting control over a critical industry sector that was left unregulated for too long. Iron ore prices pretty much dictate the price of everything else so I wasn't surprised that Chinese government decided to act. Hu might not be "spying" but he definately pissed off some people and given the fact that the dude was/is Chinese with an Australian passport, he should've known better. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
On July 24 2009 14:54 baubo wrote: @Carnivours sheep, if you read the rest of Emlary's post, you'd see that it's not just an extra zero. He thinks that having a house(or basically a condo in China) and a car is considered middle class in China. Which, of course, is just so outrageous I don't even know where to start. What's even worse is that he talks about reading the wiki, when the wiki and any other English source clearly states that middle class has nothing to do with having a car or owning your own house. It has everything to do with being a skilled laborer who's not doing manual labor, but also not among the elite of society. It shows how disconnected he is with everyday society and normal working Chinese folks. Even though I personally used to make quite a lot compared to an average Chinese person(before I went back to school), I I at least know many hard-working true middle-class Chinese on a personal level. From big cities like Beijing and Shanghai down to small towns. It kind of helped that I traveled quite a bit. Anyway, it has really been an eye-popping experience for me, as it really cleared a lot of misconceptions about the country and the people that I used to have while living in the US. Emlary's assertion wasn't outrageous. I don't know, but economic status as a validation of middle-classness sounds very right too me. | ||
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fleesy
Russian Federation14 Posts
Chinese government is really awesome, the are moving their country forward in an outstanding way. So if you find some problem in sc2 it's not because of evil red communists, it's because blizzard sucks. Yes' it's quite hard to deal with russian government, and with chinese also - but it is possible. Bernie Ecclestone made chinese GP, UEFA championship league final was in Moscow. Microsoft got quite a lot of money on "legalizing" Windows, until they become to greedy. And that was their problem. btw, livejournal.com is also banned ) | ||
Emlary
China3334 Posts
On July 24 2009 16:04 fleesy wrote: btw, livejournal.com is also banned ) Pretty sure LJ is banned for slash porn LOL Slash fangirls owned. | ||
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Adeeler
United Kingdom764 Posts
This self deprecating social system has existed the world over but it is still very prevalent in the East as its been so ingrained in there life and history. But as the education and westernisation of the lifestyle permeates the major chinese cities you'll get more and more social outbursts and drive for less corruption and democracy in place of communism, its just the natural order of civilisation. And with the internet however much the chinese government wants to censor the spread of information; information is being spread regardless and ppl are just generally seeing what is going throughout the country more easily as communication/interaction is getting better. We will slowly(as slowly as possible) see the communist party give more and more rights and become less corrupt but it will take a good few generations more as the corruption and ingrained weakness of the power in the populace is still ruled by an iron fist. Don't expect to see democracy or less corruption in our lifetimes as the dictators in china(government officials) are making far to much money and weld far to much military power over the ppl to be stopped anytime soon. The corruption may ease towards the ends of our lifetimes but not so significantly as that is the nature of that government. I'd say it will be at least 200 years before china has the equivalent of an average(todays) western countrys corruption and rights for ppl. The only way that will be speeded up is through war or a revolution(next to impossible as the ppl who are climbing the social ladder will not rock the boat). It sounds like i'm h8'ing on china a lot and I guess I am but i'm not totally against some of the positive things communism is supposed to bring like social housing/health for all etc. The thing is as much as China is said to be a communistic state it isn't. Its just a normal run of the mill dictatorship the same as many other country's. The only difference being it has nukes, military, land, economy all of which are strong enough to make them to hard of a target to want to interfer with. The economy of china = cheap production for the west and that = bigger profit margin so nothings gonna happen unless the west simply increases taxes on all chinese exports. That is probably the fastest way to increase businesses and jobs in the west and get the world out of a recession too boot. Anyway rant over. Btw, I like oriental women so the second i'd get with one I'd switch my views in an instant if needed :p | ||
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synapse
China13814 Posts
The communist party is the only political party in China, 'cuz all the other ones were driven out (look at those cute little nationalists in Taiwan... yeah become independent and we nuke you). They pretty much censor anything that is or has the possibility of going against the party - like small tribal group websites that advocate superstition as a substitute for modern medicine, and more important things like Facebook, and ACTUALLY important things like YouTube T.T. But it's getting better... even though the political system here is more like a one-party "republic." The stupid thing is that most chinese can't even read the slander against the communist party / china, and most of the people who can are smart enough to not care. On July 24 2009 15:52 haduken wrote: Emlary's assertion wasn't outrageous. I don't know, but economic status as a validation of middle-classness sounds very right too me. Somewhat off-topic: if you live in Beijing, you take the taxi (or t3hbus if youre frugal and all that); if you live in a rural area, you dont have a car anyway. 8000yuan/month is pretty average. ALSO: The chinese government hasn't discovered the existence of proxy websites / servers yet... happyface | ||
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cloyce
Italy8 Posts
IMPORTANT As I already said, they are not banned entirely, but some profiles or some videos may not be visible due to the censorship. All the rest is normally accessible in normal conditions. But in "special condition" they might be blocked temporarily. [quote]The chinese government hasn't discovered the existence of proxy websites / servers yet... happyface[/quote] Oh they know about it, like every nerd teenager in China. The Great Firewall is made for the average people, not medium skilled pc users. @ Adeeler [quote]But as the education and westernisation of the lifestyle permeates the major chinese cities you'll get more and more social outbursts and drive for less corruption and democracy in place of communism, its just the natural order of civilisation[/quote] Your brainwashed point of view could be very offensive, please contain youself. | ||
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citi.zen
2509 Posts
On July 24 2009 15:49 haduken wrote: The arrest of Hu was China's way of asserting control over a critical industry sector that was left unregulated for too long. The government already has control over national companies. This is about hard-ball negotiations with a foreign entity, not "regulation". By the way, China is hardly alone in taking a heavy-handed approach to industrial policy & foreign companies. As I mentioned earlier, Australia had no place blocking the Chinese from investing their money how they saw fit. In the US this happened in the 1980's with Japanese investors a lot, and more recently with the Chinese/Arab investors (example). European countries are notorious for "protecting" national companies as well. Iron ore prices pretty much dictate the price of everything else so I wasn't surprised that Chinese government decided to act. Hu might not be "spying" but he definately pissed off some people and given the fact that the dude was/is Chinese with an Australian passport, he should've known better. Him "pissing off" people has less to do with it than the broader context & decision to intimidate. At any rate, this is where China differs from other countries: Australia did not jail Chinese people on made-up charges when they were trying to buy Rio Tinto. The US did not arrest the representatives of Dubai Ports either. There is a human rights issue here, ( as opposed to the consumer/investor rights), which is approached rather differently in China. | ||
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son1dow
Lithuania322 Posts
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Tsuwraith
United States8 Posts
Five million Chinese World of Warcraft players... Q1 fiscal results... Asia Pacific contributed only 7% of total revenues (Asia revenues = WoW revenues)... I'm confused I guess. Is there a much reduced subscription fee in Asia or something? If not, then I don't see how your numbers work and perhaps someone can explain where I'm going wrong. 5x10^6 * $15/mo * 3mo/Quarter = 2.25x10^8$/Q Let's conservatively round that up to about 0.25B to add in retail WoW sales for expansion / new customers. So, 0.25B = 7% of total revenue. You say that 39% of the total revenue of Activision-Blizzard for Q1 was WoW-related, which means that WoW made ~1.4B in Q1. So that means in the rest of the world WoW made 1.15B?? The subscription fees from the rest of the world cover 0.225B as previously noted (approx same number of people). So... where is the rest of that 0.925B coming from? Even if all 5mil subscribers outside of the Asia-Pacific area bought WotLK, that accounts for only ~0.2B. Is Activision-Blizzard really making 0.725B per QUARTER from the TCG, toys, books, etc surrounding the IP? I know we're talking about revenue and not direct profit, but that still seems pretty crazy for video game merchandise related to one IP. Am I wrong here? Does someone have a link to breakdown of revenue for Activision-Blizzard or a source to the info in this article? I know WoW is a cash cow, but that seems excessive. | ||
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Zato-1
Chile4253 Posts
On July 25 2009 04:23 Tsuwraith wrote: I'm confused I guess. Is there a much reduced subscription fee in Asia or something? Yes, obviously. At least in China. They pay a fraction of what North American, South American and European customers pay. EDIT: WoW suscriptions are paid by the hour in China. Approximately 0.065 US dollars per hour (0.45 yuan). US$1 a month if you played 15 hours that month for instance. | ||
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Tsuwraith
United States8 Posts
On July 25 2009 05:08 Zato-1 wrote: Yes, obviously. At least in China. They pay a fraction of what North American, South American and European customers pay. EDIT: WoW suscriptions are paid by the hour in China. Approximately 0.065 US dollars per hour (0.45 yuan). US$1 a month if you played 15 hours that month for instance. Ah, ok. I don't think it was obvious, but it does make a lot more sense now. Thanks. | ||
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Mongery
892 Posts
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